The Feast (19 page)

The boat chugged out of sight round Rosigraille Point. But she did not think that it had gone far for she could hear the noise of the engine now and then.

She asked her husband for information about Kenya. He looked up from
The
Times
Literary
Supplement
and gave it to her. It was the sort of thing which he could be relied upon to do, for he had a retentive memory and he liked to accumulate facts. He gave her a concise account of Kenya, its history, geography, fauna, flora, products and population.

‘It sounds nice,’ said Mrs. Paley when he had finished.

He waited for a moment in case she should wish to know anything more, and then went back to his paper.

‘Gerry Siddal thinks of going there,’ she explained. ‘He’s been offered a job there.’

Mr. Paley looked up, but said nothing, though his expression conveyed a faint bewilderment, as if wondering what he was expected to say.

‘Don’t you think he’d better go?’ asked Mrs. Paley.

‘I’m not sure which one he is. Not the one who has just got a Balliol scholarship?’

‘No. That’s Duff; the good-looking one. Gerry is the little spotty one who does all the chores. He’s a doctor.’

‘How should I know whether he’d better go or not?’ demanded Mr. Paley. ‘I expect he had. England is no place nowadays for a young man who wants to stand on his own feet. If I were his age I should emigrate.’

‘Where to?’ asked Mrs. Paley, pleased at having established something so nearly resembling a conversation.

But he did not seem to know. It was easier to him to speak of shaking the dust of Britain off his feet than to accept the dust of any other country.

‘I think China would be rather nice,’ mused Mrs. Paley. ‘Not just now, I expect. But I’ve always liked the idea of China.’

And she sat for a while in the sunshine smiling at her idea of China. For she knew it to be fantastic and
ridiculous
, founded upon the memory of a screen which she had admired as a small child. At the bottom of China there was a lake and people fishing from frail boats amid curiously curved rocks. Then, after a layer of clouds, another landscape began. A procession went up a
mountain
path towards a kind of shrine. After more clouds the mountain tops emerged and some birds flying.

The afternoon sun sparkled in a myriad diamonds on the sea in Rosigraille Cove, so that she had to shut her eyes against the glare. It was very quiet. No waves fell on the beach and round the rocks there was only the faintest whisper and gurgle of water. For twenty minutes or more this murmurous peace was unbroken save for the occasional scream of a gull, and then she heard voices calling on the beach. She opened her eyes and saw some children scrambling over the boulders towards Rosigraille Point. It was the three Coves and Hebe, and they were all carrying bathing towels.

They had chosen a bad time to bathe, she thought, for the tide was rising and the hard sandy floor would be out of their depth. They would have to splash about among the boulders at high water mark, since the little Coves could not swim.

She watched them as they scrambled steadily along towards the far side of Rosigraille, and then, glancing up at the cliff, she saw that somebody else was watching. A small, active, dark-clad person was standing on the path which led over to Porthmerryn. Mrs. Paley had good eyes, but she picked up her husband’s field glasses to make sure.

Yes, it was Mrs. Cove. The glasses revealed her face distinctly—they even revealed her expression which was, in itself, a revelation. Its uncontrolled bitterness, as she
watched the children down on the beach, gave Mrs. Paley quite a shock. For the face which she showed to the world, though disagreeable, was watchful and guarded. Now that she was alone, now that she believed herself to be unobserved, the guard was lowered. She was looking at Blanche, Maud and Beatrix, not with her customary calm indifference, but with unmistakable dislike.

After a few seconds Mrs. Paley turned her glasses upon the children. They had not paused upon the beach, but were climbing the rocks at the foot of the point and making their way towards a long ledge called Dead Man’s Rock which ran out into the sea at the extreme end of it. Blanche was finding it difficult to get up, but the others were pulling her along.

A first faint qualm of uneasiness assailed Mrs. Paley. But she told herself that they could not possibly be meaning to bathe from there. The water off Dead Man’s Rock would be completely out of their depth. And a notice, pinned up in the hall at Pendizack, warned all visitors never to bathe from any of the rocks because the currents were dangerous.

She looked quickly again at Mrs. Cove, who had not moved. And she thought that a shout from the path would reach them, if they tried to do anything silly. It was lucky that Mrs. Cove should be so near. The Paleys up on the headland could never have been heard.

Now the children were collected in a little group on Dead Man’s Rock. Her uneasiness changed swiftly into real terror when she saw that they were stripping off their dresses. All four emerged in bathing suits.

‘But they can’t … they mustn’t …’ she exclaimed aloud.

‘What’s that?’ asked Mr. Paley, rousing.

‘Those children. They seem to be going to bathe off Dead Man’s Rock.’

He sat up to look and reached for the glasses.

The three Coves were standing in a timid row on the
edge of the rock. They seemed to be receiving some kind of harangue from Hebe.

‘They’ll be drowned if they do,’ he said.

‘But their mother! Why doesn’t she stop them?’

‘Their mother?’

‘Mrs. Cove. She’s up on the cliff.’

She snatched the glasses from him. But she could not, immediately, find Mrs. Cove, who seemed to have left the path.

‘Oh, there she is,’ she exclaimed after a few seconds. ‘She’s going down. Thank goodness. But I wish she’d shout.’

‘Good God!’ cried Mr. Paley.

She lowered the glasses and looked at the rock. Hebe, dancing up and down excitedly, was now the only child to be seen. The Coves had vanished.

‘But where are they? Where are they?’

‘They all jumped in together. On the far side of the rock. The current is probably taking them round the point.’

Hebe had stopped dancing. She was shouting now, so loudly that the echo of her cries rang across the bay. Then she too vanished.

‘Gone in after them,’ commented Mr. Paley. ‘Much good that will do.’

‘But their mother … their mother….’

Mrs. Cove was not scrambling down any more. She had stopped dead in her tracks and was staring, as they had stared, at the empty rock.

‘She saw. She must have seen.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Just a bit below the path. By that big patch of bracken. Oh, why doesn’t she go on?’

‘Not much use if she does,’ said Mr. Paley. ‘They’ll all be round the point by this time.’

Mrs. Paley picked up the glasses again and focused them on Mrs. Cove. The pale square face came into view. It looked blank and uncertain.

‘We’d better go round to her,’ said Mr. Paley, getting up.

‘She’s … going away….’

Mrs. Cove had turned and was scrambling up to the path again. She did not seem to be in any great hurry. When she reached the path she paused for a moment, as if undecided whether to continue towards Pendizack or return towards Porthmerryn. Then she made up her mind, apparently, and left it altogether. She went higher up the cliff slope and vanished behind a stone wall.

‘There’s nothing in the world that she or we can do,’ Mr. Paley was declaring. ‘By the time we could get to the rock they’d be half a mile away. We’d better go back to the hotel and raise the alarm. If they can swim they might manage to get on to some of those rocks far out….’

‘But they can’t. The Coves can’t swim.’

‘Then it’s hopeless.’

They were both hurrying back across the headland, and they now came in sight of Pendizack Cove which was unexpectedly full of people. Nearly everybody from the hotel seemed to be running and shouting. Robin and Duff, closely followed by the Gifford boys, had almost reached the top of the path. Half way up were Sir Henry and Caroline. Strung out across the narrow strip of sand left by the tide were Mrs. Siddal, Bruce, Nancibel and Fred, while Miss Ellis and Mrs. Lechene were scrambling down the rock pathway from the house. Mr. Siddal was on the terrace.

‘Boat!’ shouted Mr. Paley. ‘Get a boat!’

Duff turned and yelled to the people on the sand:

‘Boat! Boat! Get the boat!’

But nobody seemed to understand except Nancibel, who turned and began to run back. Whereat Bruce turned too and followed her.

Robin had reached the headland and was panting out questions to the Paleys. Had they seen the Coves?
When he heard what they had to tell he groaned and Duff, joining them, exclaimed:

‘Off Dead Man’s Rock? Then it’s hopeless. The current is wicked. That bloody Hebe …’

But he started to run round Rosigraille, followed by the other boys.

The next to arrive was Sir Henry, so badly winded by an attempt to run up-hill that he had to sit for a while on a rock. Caroline, who was with him, explained to the Paleys the cause of this panic-stricken pursuit. It was she who had raised the alarm, as soon as she discovered that Hebe and the Coves were missing. She had warned Hebe that she would do so, unless the swimming ordeal was abandoned.

‘And I thought she’d given it up,’ wailed Caroline. ‘I’d have told before, if I’d thought she was really going to do it!’

Cries and shouts of
Stop
them!
Oh,
stop
them
!
interrupted
her. They came from Mrs. Siddal who had now gained the top of the hill and was running and shouting with but one purpose: Robin and Duff were not to go in off Dead Man’s Rock. They would save nobody, and they would only be drowned themselves.

‘Hush!’ said Mrs. Paley, suddenly. ‘Listen!’

They all fell silent.

‘Don’t you hear it?’

The faint chugging of a boat was certainly audible, though none was to be seen.

‘It’s Gerry and Angie,’ said Mrs. Paley. ‘They’re behind the point. I saw them go round. They must be quite near …’

‘Then perhaps …’ began Sir Henry.

‘Call to Duff. Call to Robin. Stop them! Duff …’

‘Look! Oh, look!’ Caroline pointed. ‘They’re coming….’

The nose of the boat appeared from behind the rocks. As it came into full view Mrs. Paley raked it with her glasses.

‘I think they’ve got the children,’ she said. ‘Yes … yes, they have. All four.’

‘Shout to the boys. Robin! Duff! Duff!’ repeated Mrs. Siddal.

Mrs. Paley handed the glasses to Sir Henry. Gerry was steering the boat. Hebe and Evangeline were
pummelling
two Coves who lay inert amidships. A third was being sick over the side.

‘I think it’s all right,’ said Sir Henry, after a long look. ‘One of them is certainly … yes … and another one is moving….’

Caroline snatched the glasses and identified the moving Cove as Beatrix and the sick one as Maud. Blanche, she said, had not stirred. But, while she was looking,
Evangeline
, who had been busy with Beatrix, pushed Hebe aside and began work on Blanche.

The continued shouts and cries of Mrs. Siddal had halted the boys, who now turned and saw the boat. Hebe’s attention was also attracted. She looked up, saw the group on the headland, and began to wave her arms in a semaphore message which Caroline interpreted.

‘She says: All Safe!’

‘Oh, does she,’ said Mrs. Siddal. ‘How very kind of her.’

She spoke so bitterly that Sir Henry began to apologize, promising that Hebe should be brought to book. But Mrs. Siddal was not to be easily placated. She had run very fast up-hill expecting to see two of her sons drowned. And the appearance of the boat, though it allayed her fears, had not relieved her anxieties. She very much disliked the cosy tone in which Mrs. Paley talked of Gerry and Angie as though their names might naturally be coupled.

‘I hope,’ she said coldly, ‘that Hebe will be forbidden to bathe again, while she’s here. A really sharp lesson is what she needs.’

Caroline, uneasily aware of all the trouble brewing for Hebe, interposed to point out that the Coves had jumped
into the sea of their own accord. But nobody listened to her, for the Coves were popular and Hebe was not. A universal sense of irritation pervaded Pendizack, and a scapegoat had become a necessity. By unanimous and instinctive choice the lot had fallen upon Hebe. Nobody understood, nobody wanted to understand, why she had lured the little Coves to Dead Man’s Rock and persuaded them to attempt
Hara-kiri.
It seemed that she must have been prompted purely by the devil and, since the devil had been loose among them ever since Sunday morning, it was a relief to be able to locate him in a single agent. They turned against her with the fury which succeeds a panic.

‘My wife will be very much distressed,’ pleaded Sir Henry. ‘She’ll speak to Hebe.’

‘I should hope so, Sir Henry. And I think Mrs. Cove will have something to say to Hebe too. I really don’t know what Mrs. Cove will do when she hears of this.’

‘She’ll take a taxi to the Town Hall,’ said Robin, who had returned and was listening. ‘That’s what she did when all her children were nearly killed by a flying bomb, wasn’t it, sir?’

Sir Henry shook his head reprovingly.

‘But it’s true,’ protested Robin. ‘They … the little girls … told us so this morning. She sent them for a walk with flying bombs dropping all round them, and when the milkman told her he’d seen them blown to bits she hopped into a taxi and drove to the Town Hall, not to the scene of the incident. So they were all in dog house for making her waste three shillings.’

Everybody told him to hush, but a sort of smile went round the group, and the tension slackened. It was felt that Mrs. Cove could stand the news of this near fatality better than most mothers.

There was a general move back to the hotel, and the Paleys were once more left in possession of the headland. They sought their hollow again and Mrs. Paley said, as
she took up her knitting, that she would be interested to hear how Mrs. Cove took the news.